


Like Thunder and Sea

by cjmarlowe



Category: Wilby Wonderful
Genre: Anonymity, Canon Queer Character, In Public, M/M, making do
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-19
Updated: 2010-07-19
Packaged: 2017-10-12 20:00:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/128504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cjmarlowe/pseuds/cjmarlowe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Duck doesn't think what he does is dirty, but it sure feels that way sometimes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like Thunder and Sea

**Author's Note:**

> Kink bingo square: anonymity

There's brown paint under his fingernails, but it's dark out on the rocks so nobody's going to notice, and nobody'd care even if they did. Duck knows, though. He knows every part of himself better than anyone else ever will, knows every smudge and every scar and every flaw. When he thinks about it he can even smell the paint, fresh from a touch-up job at the Johnson house at the north end of town, paint and a little bit of turpentine to scrape most of it off leaving his skin tight and rough. He's going to the Watch with dirty hands tonight, but that's probably not so different from everyone else.

Duck doesn't think what he does is dirty, but it sure feels that way sometimes. Leaving his truck at least a half a mile out from where he's heading, never talking about it, never leaving anything of himself behind. He knows it's a choice, but he's not sure he even has any other ones.

Maybe he did once, but he left them behind a long time ago.

The calendar's still clinging to the tail end of summer but the weather's already turned cool, like it always does on Wilby Island, and the ocean breezes at the Watch are downright chilly. Duck rolls his sleeves down and snaps his shirt closed at the wrists, but leaves his collar open, for what it's worth. He's not some fresh-faced kid trying to attract attention, hasn't been in years, but he's still got to give a little something.

He heard a song on the radio in his truck before he left it behind, an old Johnny Cash tune, and it's still running through his head as he skulks through the trees. _Maybe you were reckless yesterday, but together we can find a brighter way._ Not tonight, though. He still hums it under his breath as damp leaves rustle but don't crackle under his feet.

It's both harder and easier to do this sober. Harder because he can't just block out the thirty years of history that brought him here; easier because he doesn't feel like everything he does is something to be ashamed of anymore. He's at peace with himself these days, if not always at peace with what he has to do.

A couple of teenagers are parked in the lot by the overlook but Duck ignores them, moves in the shadows right past them and down towards what he's looking for. It's beautiful out here at the Watch. Even right now, when he isn't out here for the view, Duck can see it. He chooses to see it.

Sometimes he comes out here and there's no one, and Duck just keeps walking, enjoys the shore and heads home again. But tonight isn't one of those nights. Tonight's a busy night, Bingo night at the hall and Susie Wright's doing a cross-stitch workshop in the United Church basement. A lot of men have some time on their hands tonight and are looking for something they don't get very often.

Duck isn't one of them, but he tries not to judge them for it. He's nobody's moral compass.

He finally moves in and brushes past someone in the trees, arm against arm, and the man follows him further along the shoreline. He's about an inch shorter than Duck, and a little wider at the shoulders, but that's all that Duck chooses to note about him.

His eyes are weaker than they were when he was younger but they're still good enough for his job so Duck doesn't worry about it much. It makes things harder to make out in the darkness though, which means he doesn't always have to pretend he doesn't know who he's with anymore. Wilby Island's just not that big, especially not after a lifetime.

They don't exchange names, just looks and gestures, and then they're moving off beneath the trees by the shore, shadowed and swaying in the wind. Storm's coming on, but that hasn't kept people away tonight.

Sometimes Duck just aches for someone to touch him. He doesn't talk about it much, he's got friends and family and things to keep him busy, but he's a lonely person. People don't _touch_ him often, he doesn't get hugs or caresses or an arm around his shoulders. Sometimes he gets a handshake. Occasionally a clap on the back.

This isn't that same kind of touch but it's something else he needs sometimes, a hand on his arm, on his breastbone, then grasping at him, needing and wanting. He needs to be wanted sometimes.

Duck kisses him, both because he wants that and because it encourages silence. He doesn't _want_ to know if this is Ed from the hardware store or Greggy just graduated from high school and working for his father's landscaping business or someone's cousin just up for the week. For all he knows, he couldn't even go through with it if they ever exchanged pleasantries.

He's good at this, yanking a belt open, unbuttoning a shirt only as far as he needs to, reaching and twisting and grasping and tugging. Getting someone off while being poised to zip and run if they have to, though Duck's not even sure he'd run anymore. He's not sure he has it in him.

Hard to worry about that when he's being jerked off by a sure hand, though. Hard to worry about that when he's found someone who doesn't mind kissing back, who seems to relish that small bit of intimacy as much as Duck does. Sometimes it's all they've got.

The waves are pounding on the rocks and his blood is rushing in his ears and the wind is slipping in under his collar, billowing his shirt out in the back. The storm's going to hit any moment now and the last place they ought to be is out here at the Watch. Out of the corner of his eye Duck can see shadows and distant headlights, knows that men with more common sense are heading on home.

It's not a lack of common sense that keeps him out here, just a need that's stronger than that.

He's a bit of a biter, but the guy doesn't seem to mind that either. Duck's teeth sink into his lower lip as he comes with a grunt, not even trying to be silent beneath the overpowering sound of the wind. The guy pulls his hand out, shakes it off, and keeps kissing as Duck finishes him off. On another night he might've offered a blowjob, something more than this, but he doesn't go to his knees for just anyone anymore and especially not on damp, rocky ground on the cusp of a storm.

They don't say anything as they part either, just zip and tuck and touch in a few ways that Duck doesn't always get, and cherishes now that he is. He doesn't let himself speculate for long but he thinks this must be someone younger, more inexperienced, still hoping to find something here that Duck long since knows he never will. Maybe the guy will manage to find it somewhere else, in a way that Duck never did.

They part ways again, Duck taking a shortcut back up to the highway and the guy going back the way they came, maybe to a jacket or a backpack or a tool belt that he left behind, and the sky opens up.

Duck doesn't rush back to his truck. He sees other bodies out in the darkness seeking shelter before he breaks through the trees, but he's already soaked through and he's just going to get wetter anyway so he walks along the shoulder of the road, on the narrow strip of asphalt just before it dips off into the now-muddy gravel at the edge.

It's a little while before he sees a set of headlights coming towards him, slowing down. He's far enough from where he started that even anyone in the know's not going to think anything of it, but he's still not keen on company. His thoughts are enough company for him right now, even if they aren't the best company.

"Got caught out in the rain, eh?" says Buddy, hanging out the window of his patrol car as Duck slicks the hair back from his forehead.

"Yeah, guess I thought I'd beat it home," says Duck, giving him a weak smile. He doesn't think Buddy notices. "Seemed like a nice night for a walk earlier."

"Need a lift? I don't mind if you drip. Someone else cleans this thing up so it's no bother."

"Nah," says Duck, slipping his hands into his pockets and shifting his weight from one foot to the other. Mud squishes under the heel of his boot "Now that I'm wet, might as well see it through."

"Walking's good for the heart, right?" says Buddy. "That's what Carol tells me. Tells me quitting smoking's good for the heart too, but that one hasn't sunk in yet either."

"She's right," says Duck, and gives him another tentative smile, and just sort of waits for Buddy to move along. After a few more moments, a thick silence that could mean a lot of things or nothing at all, he gives Duck a wave and rolls up the window and keeps going.

Duck watches him go until the taillights turn the corner out by the post office road, slicks his hair back again and starts heading for his truck, then for home. In another place, or another life, everything he did wouldn't be some deep, scary secret. He wouldn't be sneaking around, he would know the name of the person he just jerked off on the rocks. But that's not how it is in Wilby, and that's never been how it is for Duck.

But he still lets himself wonder if he can ever have anything more than this.


End file.
